James Beach

Science Fiction, Fantasy, Nonfiction and More

Mar
7

By

Real News of Fictional Worlds in the New Year, February 2019

Category: Blog, Newsletter

Greetings new subscribers!
Very nice to meet you, and thanks for subscribing! As you’ll see, I like to have a freewheeling newsletter that covers what’s happened this month in the universe in general, in my writing in particular and with my upcoming works.

For all my previous subscribers, it’s lovely to be chatting at your sensory apparati once again.

1/12th of the way through this year, in words
As mentioned in my January newsletter, my shoot-for-the-moon-and-gain-at-least-the-mountains goal is 11 new works of at least novella length this year. This includes at least 6 full novels.

Fingers and tentacles crossed, so far I’m on course! I’ve done the first draft of one novella and the second draft of a novel. I’ll be sending them out to beta readers for feedback soon. As I also still have a day job, and I also would like to keep up my habit of sleeping at least once every 24 hours, the effort has me thoughtful about proportion. It’s about work/life balance, and about still enjoying the creative job I’m giving myself – and it’s also about having and growing a small business and respecting myself as a resource. How do I keep enjoying my creative part with, it amuses me to say, optimax efficiency?

A question that comes from that is, what do I most enjoy writing? And how might that intersect with what people like to read?

I don’t have a full answer yet–which is another reason to charge through these 11 potential works. They vary, like my interests. One is an existential fantasy about a detective in Hell; one is a military science fiction thriller about an alien invasion like we haven’t seen before (thankfully, not in real life or in fiction). One is an urban fantasy set in some of the vagaries of our current startup-tech-driven times; another is an epic fantasy exploration of civilizations that could have faded before history. Yet another is the tale of a warrior Schnauzer-Dachsund who longs to be a Dragon Hound, because I love the idea and it seems almost too cute to bear.

(Not my commissioned art – at least, not yet. Etsy has a lot of really amazing work.)

What might work best? Perhaps I’ll know more by December. No matter what particular style, genre or tone ends up making me and others happiest, I expect to always enjoy trying my hand at something new.

Upcoming conferences
I’ll be at this year’s Friends of Genre Convention AKA FogCon in March, and I’m stoked. “Friends of Genre” is a small but fierce conference driven by love for fantastic fiction and fan participation. One of the panels I proposed is “Creating With a Day Job”. I really hope this panel is approved – it’s something I’ve spent some years figuring out for myself. I look very forward to sharing what’s worked for me and hearing about other people’s processes and challenges to do the same. I hope and expect this will help me towards putting my own information into a nonfiction book that can be of help also.

One of the other possible panels at this year’s Fogcon is the intersection of science fiction, fantasy and music. Reading about the panel’s existence lit me up to explore this on my own, especially the hard rock/heavy metal side. For the curious, here are some YouTube playlists I’ve put together as research. Some of the most fun research I’ve done yet.

I’m also biting the bullet to check out this year’s Nebula convention in May. Worldcon was such a fantastic experience that I’m interested in this other big convention as well. I look forward to meeting writers, learning more about writing and publishing, and seeping in the world behind creating worlds of the fantastical.

  If you enjoy one of my tales from the above offerings, please do leave a review on Amazon via the handy links in their titles. You can also check out my books via my author page.
Bookbub for Books, Bub
I’m on Bookbub, and in addition to listing my own books I’ve started writing reviews of some of my favorite others’ works. If you’d like to follow me there, click below.

What’s next?
I go through the drafts I completed this month. One is the supernatural hard-boiled detective novella  tentatively titled “Deviled”, and the other is the sequel to my urban fantasy “Wishful Thinking” about a troubled troubleshooter for magical startup companies. Then they’re off to an editor, and then to beta readers, and then to the world at large. : ) 
That’s me for this month.

Wherever you are, keep on imagining, ~ j : )